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Lost Legion - how bad must they have been


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Just a thought, bear with me! (apologies if covered elsewhere)

 

we know that records on the two missing legios have been expunged from the Imperiums history books, so they must have done something pretty bad. What gets me is that whilst the sons of Horus, world eaters et al have been declared excomunicate from the Imperium, their records are still there. The traiters in HH turned against their father, their leader and their people, and yet still didnt get the same treatement as the two missing legions. Also members of the traiter legions have been allowed access back into the Imperium without much of a word said (Garro, varren etc)

 

Either this shows inconsistancy with the judgements ruled out, or I am missing something. Probably the latter, but any thoughts?

A couple of things spring to mind on this one. It might on the surface of things seem as though they did something really really terrible... worse than turning to chaos but I don't think that is necessarily the case. Firstly they seem to have been effectively wiped from existance so expunging their records is actually going to work... the traitor legions have not been wiped out... far from it... kinda pointless wiping out records of the guy who is going to come knocking on your door to try to kill you regularly. Secondly the emperor was alive and active at the point that the records were expunged whereas he seems to be rather crispy lately. Difficult to expunge records of legions in this tate I'm thinking <_<

Well, currently the traitor legions still exist, and in practical terms it only makes sense to strike them from the record once they're destroyed or disbanded. But the big problem is that the Emperor was incapacitated at the end of the Heresy, so couldn't personally order them stricken from records. I think that with the Primarchs and Marines being a direct creation of the Emperor, an order to strike them from the records would have to come from Him, not just from the High Council. Marine Chapters don't take orders from the High Council, the Adeptus Mechanicus sort of does but is really unlikely to purge all copies of information from one (especially since they keep stocks of geneseed), and the Inquisition is above the High council and obviously wouldn't want to get rid of their records.

 

I think the lost legions didn't do anything all that bad compared to the heretic legions, they might have had problems with mutations (IIRC Thousand Sons implies this), a Primarch might have died or not integrated into the Imperium, they could have turned to religion, or they could have worked with Xenos too much. Remember that there was an implication that the World Eaters and Thousand Sons had come close to suffering the same fate, and neither of them were in outright rebellion. The punishment made sense if one or two legions needed to be punished, when it's half the legions then you're not really setting a stark example any more.

I am personally of the opinion that the inconsistency is in the general assumption that the two lost legions did something wrong. I like to believe that perhaps they were part of some ingenious plan concocted by the Emperor before His demise. A contingency plan of sorts. Then again, I like to think that there are certain things Grey Knights can't kill. I've been wrong before.
I am personally of the opinion that the inconsistency is in the general assumption that the two lost legions did something wrong. I like to believe that perhaps they were part of some ingenious plan concocted by the Emperor before His demise. A contingency plan of sorts. Then again, I like to think that there are certain things Grey Knights can't kill. I've been wrong before.

 

Well that being the case and taking the whole primarchs relate to the tarot thing where most people tend to think fortune and the High Priestess are the two missing legions then they would be pretty good for a contingency plan... especially if it was meant for chaos... Fortune is about big things (so one or two legions suddenly appearing as part of a long term plan would qualify) and The priestess might have the most in common with Magnus but where Magnus might have more connections with power the Priestess would be with understanding and if Magnus' greatest strength was his power over the warp (also his greatest weakness?) then maybe this primarchs strength is their undersrtanding of the warp (and chaos)... Combined they might well be suited for a gambit designed to counter punch chaos... if such was their purpose...

I cant remember if the Space Wolves were ordered by the Big E to wipe out 1 or 2 legions, something in the back of my mind says in TS and PB it says there only killed off 1 legion, if thats the case who killed off the 2nd Legion??

 

It is never actually stated that the Wolves killed off another legion. Russ only implied it.

I am personally of the opinion that the inconsistency is in the general assumption that the two lost legions did something wrong. I like to believe that perhaps they were part of some ingenious plan concocted by the Emperor before His demise. A contingency plan of sorts. Then again, I like to think that there are certain things Grey Knights can't kill. I've been wrong before.

 

 

Maybe "they got lost in the warp" & the Emperor ordered Russ to execute their legacy so he wouldnt be embarassed.

 

Maybe the Gery Knihgts could kill Matt Ward's imagination? :P

I am personally of the opinion that the inconsistency is in the general assumption that the two lost legions did something wrong. I like to believe that perhaps they were part of some ingenious plan concocted by the Emperor before His demise. A contingency plan of sorts. Then again, I like to think that there are certain things Grey Knights can't kill. I've been wrong before.

 

I would agree, there tends to be a lot of tunnel vision with regard to the 2 lost legions. The general consensus is that they did something bad to get erased, but as the GK codex shows, sometimes you can do alot of good* things and still have most of your info erased.

 

*(disclaimer: I am not saying everything they did was good, this is 40k after all)

 

An idea I had a while ago was that perhaps one of the legions was erased to keep some terrible secret from becoming more widely known. They wouldn't have needed to be bad, but their continued existence represented too much of a risk for the emperor to accommodate. Its tragic, but it may not have been their fault.

my personal theory is this: they did something bad, rebeled against the Emperor. They were destroyed. The Emperor was able to erase them from the records as a single legion turning against him wasnt a galaxy changing event.

 

The Horus Heresy was simply too large to erase however. It wasnt a single legion turning, but rather the being created to lead your armies into the future. there is no erasing that, even if his body had survived.

 

so, to sum up: 1 or 2 legions turing, managable. the Horus Heresy, too big to cover up.

 

WLK

I'd like to think that the missing legions had something to do with Chaos. They didn't necessarily have to betray the emperor in an all out rebellion but we know the big E doesn't like Chaos much. Maybe they even tried to use Chaos in a 'good' way but of course, their father wouldn't even suffer the thought.
But if rumor is to be believed, the Ultras took a lot into their legion at an early stage, so there cant have been taint, or heresy, as surely that wouldnt have been allowed..........yet still the records are erased!
In first heretic there are some cryptic referances to what happened - as it seems hat Logar was not happy with what they had to do to thier brothers (I think he refers to mutations ore something??? feel free to correct me) and that the two marine legions where absorbed by the Ultra marines - making them the bigest legion.
But if rumor is to be believed, the Ultras took a lot into their legion at an early stage, so there cant have been taint, or heresy, as surely that wouldnt have been allowed..........yet still the records are erased!

 

Nope, according to the author himself there's no truth to that rumour at all. It's just mud-flinging and rumour-mongering between two bittered marines.

I'm never quite sure if they are meant to be DIY primarchs (which as soon as fluff is written about them gets blown out of the sky quicker than you can blink) or if there is a much deeper purpose behind them. or if the vision shown to Horus by Chaos (the two pods containing the primarchs) were dammaged and there is simply nothing there because frankly they died as children.

 

Or maybe after those two primarchs were killed their legions were broken up and placed into the remining loyalist legions to watch over (unless they were tainted or indeed stood agaisnt there traitor brethren in the time of the HeresY)

 

Wild speculation of course

Heh, don't worry. I don't expect for everyone to have read the post, I'm not that insane/much of a fluff nazi. I mean, it's an interesting theory, but it's far, far more likely that when we know a single planet could sustain a Legion strength of around 80,000, then a whole sector's worth of recruitment worlds could easily maintain a strength of 250,000 Marines. After all, there were no limits on legion size at the time, so the Ultramarines had, lets say 6 worlds to gain recruitments for, with every successful candidate going through to implantation, with none turned away because they'd reached a number limit. It's not really surprising that the Ultramarine Legion was that size.
I'm never quite sure if they are meant to be DIY primarchs (which as soon as fluff is written about them gets blown out of the sky quicker than you can blink) or if there is a much deeper purpose behind them. or if the vision shown to Horus by Chaos (the two pods containing the primarchs) were dammaged and there is simply nothing there because frankly they died as children.

 

Or maybe after those two primarchs were killed their legions were broken up and placed into the remining loyalist legions to watch over (unless they were tainted or indeed stood agaisnt there traitor brethren in the time of the HeresY)

 

Wild speculation of course

 

Given the events in Prospero Burns, with the role of the Wolves, if they were unleashed as the final sanction, nothing would be remaining...No Primarch, no marines, no men, women, children, cats or dogs. They don't stop until all is annihilated, or they are annihilated. Utter destruction, almost exterminatus style, but by axe and bolter, versus orbital annihilation. If true, It places further doubt on any marines being absorbed into other legions.

I don't think it could have been Chaos.

 

In TFH Lorgar and MAgnus talk about not talking about it. They know what happened, they knew that their brothers had died. They (possible) had some say in it. Yet they are still ignorant of Chaos.

 

Didn't Lorgar call them the purged and the lost, implying 2 different losses. A view supported by The Lightning Tower.

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